The man who discovered Uranus was a professional musician.
William Herschel was an organist in Bath and wrote 24 symphonies, grinding telescope mirrors at night and making the best telescopes of his day.
More amazing facts
- 1776 The Bolshoi Theatre and the United States are the same age: the theatre dates from March 1776, the Declaration of Independence from July of that year.
- 1776 · 1782 Bangkok is a younger capital than the United States is a country: King Rama I moved Siam's capital to the east bank of the Chao Phraya in 1782, six years after the Declaration of Independence.
- 1778 · 1779 Hawaii was first called the Sandwich Islands — after the same earl as the sandwich.
- 1781 · 1850 Uranus was almost named after an English king.
- 1783 The first aeronauts were a sheep, a duck and a rooster.
- 1783 'What use is a newborn baby?' That, the story goes, was Benjamin Franklin's reply in Paris in 1783 when someone asked him what good a balloon could possibly be.